Nikki Jean

Vocalist and songwriter Nikki Jean, a local of St. Paul, Minnesota, was an associate of Nouveau Riche, a Philadelphia-based group offering Root base affiliate Dice Organic. The group released a set of EPs rather than attained lift-off, though Nikki do some outside function during that period, like the lead vocal on the cover of Sting’s “End up being Still My Defeating Heart,” documented with ?uestlove from the Root base’ Randy Watson Task for Ubiquity’s Rewind! 5 compilation. She obtained wider publicity in past due 2007, when she added vocals to two monitors on Lupe Fiasco’s The Great — “Small Weapon” as well as the solitary “Hip Hop Saved MY ENTIRE LIFE,” the second option which she also co-wrote. The next 12 months, she performed with Fiasco among the starting functions on Kanye West’s Glow at night Tour. She consequently centered on her single profession and forged a detailed alliance with maker Sam Hollander; she wanted him designed for his focus on Carole King’s Like Makes the Globe. Hollander and Nikki conspired to get songwriting insight from a several legends, the majority of whom peaked through the ’60s and ’70s. Though Columbia authorized Nikki, the label didn’t start to see the task through and fallen her in Oct 2010. S Curve swept her up and released the recording, Pennies inside a Jar, in July 2011. The varied group of throwback-oriented tunes, all custom constructed by Nikki Jean’s light however powerful tone of voice, counted Ruler, Thom Bell, Lamont Dozier, Paul Williams, Burt Bacharach, Jeff Barry, Jimmy Webb, and Carly Simon among its staggering set of co-composers. The recording also presented “Metal and Feathers,” a track designed for Bob Dylan’s 1981 recording Shot of Like that were left imperfect and unrecorded for three years.